Value Of Civil Liberties

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

-Abraham Lincoln

Because I agree with Lincoln, I negate the Resolution, which follows

Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, truth-seeking ought to take precedence over attorney-client privilege.

I approve of the definitions provided by the affirmative.

Value and Criterion:

My value will be Civil Liberties (Civil Rights). The freedom from arbitrary governmental interference, specifically by denial of governmental power and in the United States especially as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Which is important because through this ideal an individual cannot be forced into action or
inaction by a government haphazardly. This value relates to the resolution because it allows for individuals to defend themselves in the best ways possible, while being treated equally by a government that is nonrestrictive of rights.

My value criterion will be the Constitution (Bill of Rights).
This criterion is important because through the Constitution individuals are given the ability to ensure their safety and protect to a greater degree their individual rights while incompliance with the United States legal system. This criterion achieves my value premise because the Constitution provides every individual the right to a fair trial and equal representation therefore supporting Civil Liberties in the fact that the government is abiding to the fundamentals on which it was established while meeting and upholding each person’s individual rights.

I negate the resolution for the following two contentions:

1. It is Morally Permissible to better a Criminal Justice System which does not include Truth Seeking
2. Attorney-Client Privilege is vital for Fifth Amendment Protections

1. Moving onto my first Contention: It is Morally Permissible to better a Criminal Justice System which does not include Truth Seeking
a. Truth seeking and justice are not the same thing.
b. Truth seeking is not the goal of the Criminal Justice System.
c. Eliminating Attorney-Client Privilege Fundamentally Alters the Criminal Justice
System
d. It would not be Morally Permissible to place Truth Seeking over Attorney Client Privilege as it would be Detrimental to Society.
e. The American Bar Association officially endorses the theory that “preserving client confidences ordinarily serves the public interest because people are more likely to seek legal advice, and thereby heed their legal obligations, when they know their communications will be private.”

f. Truth-seeking and justice are not the same thing.
f.i.
The Oxford Dictionary defines Justice as a behavior or treatment based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.
f.ii. Furthermore it defines Truth as the quality or state of being in accordance with fact and reality.
f.iii. Through these definitions we are able to see that truth and justice are not synonymous. And seeing as how Justice is a moral ideal and not in correspondence with truth, in the form of facts, it cannot always comply to what the truth dictates. What truth dictates is not always just. Thus truth must comply to justice.
f.iv. By looking at the criminal justice system we are able to see that truth is not the primary goal, instead it is to establish and determine what is just, thus upholding justice. This is possible to happen without the need for truth-seeking.
g. The perusal of justice over truth-seeking is in correspondence with Civil Liberties (should be Civil Rights) in the fact that since the Criminal Justice System is the process through which justice is upheld, the perusal of truth by the government would be an arbitrary interference and is therefore nonpermissible.

2. And finally moving onto my second Contention: Attorney-Client Privilege is vital for Fifth Amendment
Protections
a. The Fifth Amendment states, “No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
b. As Michael B. Dashjian expounded upon this privilege against self-incrimination has been linked to the attorney-client privilege. Though no man is forced to directly incriminate himself, if the criminal justice system were to under emphasize attorney-client privilege, a person would have to indirectly incriminate himself. In the sense that he would need to incriminate himself to his attorney, in order to receive proper representation and consul, while his attorney would have to turn around and testify against the individual he is meant to consul. Effectively forcing an individual to choose between self-incrimination and accurate legal consul.
c. The freedom form self-incrimination as provided by the Constitution, is vital to the freedom from arbitrary governmental inference. In the way that by going against a given privilege from the Constitution the government would be interfering with an individual’s right for an equal and fair trial.

I will now be moving onto attack my opponent’s case.

For the reasons I have stated above and the faults in my opponent’s case, I can see nothing but a vote in negation on this Resolution today.